


Business Lunch

by ultharkitty



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-21
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultharkitty/pseuds/ultharkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Swindle tries to convince Vortex to go along with his latest plan.</p><p>Set on Cybertron at the very beginning of the Golden Age.</p><p>Contains implied violence, assassination and snuff. Also crack :)</p><p>This came about because of this: http://spacehussy.livejournal.com/438712.html</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“We’ll make a fortune!” Swindle grinned wide, his optics alight.

Vortex stared at the dregs of his energon. “Never thought I’d say this, Swin, but that ain’t legal, and we’re gonna get caught.”

“No we’re not!” Swindle protested. He sat back in his chair and propped his feet on the table. Overhead, the Cybertronian night glittered, star-spun and crossed with the vapour trails of a hundred types of airframe.

It didn’t matter that the table was second hand, the energon cubes were mismatched, and the view wasn’t from the penthouse Swindle longed for, but the top of an abandoned building Vortex had flown them to. It still felt good to be there, talking business with his new companion over the finest high grade he could steal. All that remained was to convince the rotary that his plan wasn’t about to land them both in jail.

Vortex put his cube down and rattled his rotors. “There’s a reason I don’t have people film me while I work.”

“It won’t be people,” Swindle said. “I’ll be me. And you won’t be in frame… much. And who cares if you are? There’s thousands of rotaries out there all look like you, who the frag can tell ‘em apart on film?”

“I can,” Vortex said. “Spinister will.”

“Then we’ll put you in disguise!” Swindle said. He treated Vortex to his most hopeful smile. “We’ll paint you up or give you wings on your legs or something. No-one’s gonna know it was you.”

“What about the subjects?” Vortex said.

“We go for empties,” Swindle shrugged. “Low-lifes, addicts, the kind of guys no-one gives a frag about.”

“That ain’t my job,” Vortex said. “My marks tend to be a bit more… high profile.”

“Then we’ll anonymise ‘em!” Swindle beamed. “Or hey, we cut you out of the picture all together. No shots of you, just the victims.”

“How’s that gonna be fun to watch?” Vortex said. For a mech who’d been out of the military and in civilian society for all of half a vorn, he sure did have a lot of questions.

“Point of view?” Swindle said, as a whole new set of opportunities unfolded in his mind. “Done it with pleasure ‘bots before. We fit a camera to your helm, and it does everything. You get your hands in shot, maybe your lower arms, but that’s all. And frag, there’s gotta be a million mechs with hands the same model as yours.”

Vortex grinned. “And what do I get?”

“Forty percent of the profits, creative direction, and some extra help carting the parts off to the smelters.”

This time Vortex laughed. “Fifty,” he said, “and you do exactly what I say with the leftovers.”

“Forty-five,” Swindle countered. “And I’ll throw in that set of laser scalpels you had your eye on earlier.”

Vortex looked up at the stars as he appeared to give it some thought. Eventually, he looked back at Swindle and raised his cube. “Why the frag not?”


	2. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ficlet for Spacehussy, who requested Vortex and Swindle in prison after making snuff films.

"I told you so," Vortex sighed. He lay on his front over the topmost narrow bunk and spun his rotors. With the exception of goading Swindle, it wasn't as though there was anything else to do.

Swindle sulked on the middle bunk. "Didn't stop you going along with it," he snapped, as though that was somehow Vortex's fault, and not the fault of immense amounts of money, intensely gratuitous fun, and Swindle's own persuasiveness. "Two vorns," he added. "Two glitching _vorns_!"

"Could be worse," Vortex said. In the cycle they'd so far been incarcerated, he'd found that aggressive cheerfulness ground Swindle's gears like nothing else.

" _How?_ " A new voice issued from the bottom bunk. Deep, threatening, the same voice that had told them five times already to be quiet.

"I could be _really_ bored," Vortex said.

Swindle thumped the underside of his bunk. "Don't even think about it. They'd smelt us."

"Think about what?" Deep and rumbly asked. Obviously not the brightest wrench in the toolbox.

"Takin' you apart," Swindle said. "The cameras won't put him off. He _likes_ being filmed."

A moment's silence from the bottom bunk, then, "That what they got you for? Makin' vids of killin' people?"

Vortex laughed so hard he nearly rolled off the bunk. Was the mech so block-headed he thought they'd get two vorns for serial murder? Not to mention recording it, distributing it, bribing or otherwise dealing with anyone who got in the way, and having more fun than was legal on any known planet.

"What's so funny?" the mech growled. Stupid _and_ short-tempered, he was going to be the perfect cell-mate.

"He's an aft," Swindle said. He thumped the underside of the bunk again.

"At least I'm an aft who knows how to use an EMP generator," Vortex countered. All that footage, lost forever; it was terrible. But, on the other hand, all that evidence, lost forever. When Iacon's finest had closed in on them, the only thing left had been the recording equipment. Which wouldn't have been a problem if Swindle had bought it from a normal shop like any sensible criminal.

"Then what _did_ they get him for?" said the occupant of the bottom bunk.

Swindle sighed the deeply felt sigh of a mech whose life was on hold. "Same as me," he said. "Handling stolen goods."


	3. Making Movies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Millions of years later, Swindle and Vortex are back to their old tricks. Kind of.
> 
>  
> 
> Contains mild BDSM, bloodplay/painplay, and enthusiastic consensual sticky smut that - at first - doesn't appear to be consensual to the POV character. Crack.
> 
> For Spacehussy :)
> 
> Massive thanks to Ayngelcat for looking over it for me :)

Screams echoed through hangar bay four.

They were desperate screams, the urgent, terrified cries of a mech in significant pain and genuine fear for his life.

Onslaught sighed the worldweary sigh of someone for whom the light at the end of the tunnel was a cursor blinking in an empty report form. He didn't want the bureaucracy, but he really ought to investigate.

Perhaps someone had caught an Autobot spy. Then all this would be legitimate, and he could find another - deserted, this time - section of the Nemesis to pace while he thought through his latest strategy.

The screams continued, punctuated by the odd growl and an echo of sinister and very familiar laughter.

Onslaught paused a moment to determine the source of the noise, then sprinted straight for it.

The door was unlocked. He burst through, engine roaring. Vortex, it was always Vortex. Except when it was Brawl. But this time, it was Vortex.

Onslaught had time to notice his interrogator on his knees between another mech's thighs, laser scalpel in his hand and torn circuits gripped between his teeth, before someone yelled, "CUT!"

Onslaught spun around.

"CUT for frag sake, cut!" Swindle leapt out of his chair, optics ablaze with a very purple kind of fury. He turned that fury on Onslaught. "Commander's got his aft in the shot," he snarled. "We'll run it again."

"Shot?" But Onslaught's processors quickly caught up. Shot, yes, there was Reflector in his new videocamera alt mode, and Rumble humming gently beside him. And Octane lounging in the corner; or at least he _had_ been lounging. Onslaught's scrutiny brought him to a kind of wary half-attention.

" _Shot_ ," Swindle repeated. "As in filming, as in you're ruining the production of perfectly legal and potentially highly profitable pornography." He sighed. "Tex, cut means stop."

"Nope," Vortex said, and the mech beneath him moaned. It was a big mech, bigger than Vortex. Wings crumpled, half-torn from his legs; a nosecone leant at an awkward angle above his head. Traces of dark paint showed under a layer of… other paint, recently applied. Still wet in places if the smears on Vortex's knees were anything to go by.

Ramjet?

Vortex's engine purred, and he brought the scalpel very slowly down the Conehead's cheek. The mech bucked. "Oh frag oh frag yes! I mean no, arghhhhh! Someone help me! ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Swindle made a frustrated noise of the type that Onslaught knew well. It was the sound of well-laid plans getting well and truly dumped in the smelter; he could sympathise.

To an extent.

"Legitimate?" he queried. He took in the bungled repainting, the broken circuits and spilled energon. Pink paint, his sensors told him, and dead spare parts. Mostly. Around 20% of the energon was real, and some of the damage exposed actual important parts of the flier. "Is he meant to look like…"

"An Aerialbot," Swindle said, and that pleading tone had begun to seep into his voice. "Doesn't matter which one. It sells. _Vortex_ , put a hold on that until we start up again, _frag_!"

But Vortex wasn't listening. And neither was Ramjet. The airframe clawed at the floor, his vents heaving and his frame so tense Onslaught could see his armour vibrate. Vortex used the scalpel to lift a small section of his dermal plating, and slid his glossa underneath. Then he rolled his hips, and Ramjet made a sound not at all unlike a mech approaching overload.

Vortex continued to thrust. Rumble snickered, and Octane stared.

Onslaught rounded on them. "Account for your presence."

"Sound engineer," Rumble sneered, with a grin that said 'I'm not your subordinate, and you can frag right off.'

Octane bit his lip. "Creative consultant?" he ventured.

"He's the runner," Swindle said, and slumped back in his seat. He dug out a datapad and tossed it to Onslaught. "The jet signed a waiver, it _is_ all legit. We're off duty, this ain't a critical part of the ship, and we can't be disturbing the peace 'cause Brawl ain't here."

Onslaught doubted the veracity of fully fifty percent of that last claim, but he consulted the datapad regardless. In his peripheral vision, Vortex pulled his spike entirely free of Ramjet's valve, and put his fist through the jet's chest. Ramjet whined in obvious happy frustration.

"I'm still recording," Reflector announced. "We can edit out his… aft. Perhaps our victim could get back into character?"

Swindle glanced at Onslaught. When he registered no obvious disapproval, a shadow of a smile appeared on his lips. "Ramjet, y'aint a masochist. You're a pathetic, terrified Autobot gettin' fragged to within an inch of your life by the evil, sadistic Decepticon. Lemme see it! Lemme _hear_ it! Tex… just… just keep going."

While Ramjet began again to scream, and Vortex continued to ignore Swindle in favour of being himself (which only had the desired effect by accident), Onslaught went over to the smallest of his team. "I seem to recall you got arrested for this," he said quietly. "Back in the good old days. Remind me how long the two of you spent in prison?"

"Til you got us that lawyer," Swindle said. "And this is different! This is like… proper acting. Except Tex. We ain't killin' anyone, and Scrapper's already agreed to fix up Ramjet for a slice of the profits."

"There are regulations," Onslaught said, "concerning the proper conduct of a soldier."

Swindle took a long vent and let it out very slowly. "All right," he said. "How much?"

"Consider it a favour," Onslaught replied. "To all of you."

Octane studiously looked away; Rumble sniffed his scorn. Only Reflector and his subjects failed to react.

"All right all right!" Swindle whispered. On the other side of the room, Vortex tugged Ramjet's hands above his head, and pressed them against the ruin of his nosecone.

"Struggle," he demanded as he lined up his spike. "Try to get away…" He pushed forward, and Ramjet only just managed to turn his groan of approval into an agonised squeal. The flier gave an approximation of struggling, while not doing anything at all to dislodge the spike from his valve, or to actually throw Vortex off.

"There's a market here for this?" Onslaught said, as Vortex howled in climax, and Ramjet screamed fit to make his audials ring for a vorn. "Of course there is, forget I asked."

"All right!" Swindle leapt up. "Reflector, I'm gonna need you in root mode for the next shot. We're gonna want three different angles. Tex, get your hand off his laser core, that's not for another two scenes. Octane, get Ramjet some energon. C'mon people, let's move!"

Onslaught slid into Swindle's chair and sighed. At least he wouldn't have to make a report. But, he thought, as he watched Vortex lick the fuel from Ramjet's face, he would have to stay. It would be foolish to allow them to continue unsupervised.


End file.
